Drew Brees talks about loss to New England Patriots

Saints quarterback threw two TD passes

Q: Is any loss as difficult as this one?

DB: This one is difficult because you certainly felt like you had a chance. Coming in at halftime 17-7 we weren’t discouraged at all, although we knew we hadn’t played our best football in the first half. We felt like if we kept hammering away that we could find a way to win. Lord knows we had our chances at the end there. I know that you can’t give Tom Brady and that offense three chances at a two-minute drill. So, for us offensively, you sit there and rack your brain about, ‘Man, we need to get one first down,’ so that we could have put ourselves in position to run out the clock or at least get the clock down so far so that it would have been nearly impossible to come back.

DB: (I) loved the play call. I just tried to use my eyes to manipulate the safety a little bit to get as close to a one-on-one matchup out there as possible. I knew he would be getting over there late, but Kenny did a great job of getting by his guy and going up and making a play in the end zone. Obviously, that’s a huge play in the game – third-and-20 – the score is 23-17, that gives us the lead and a lot of momentum.

Q: Normally when a team takes away Jimmy Graham you beat them with other options. What did they do to take away other options?

DB: I think anytime you play a Bill Belichick defense and a team that’s playing a lot of man and just those things, you understand that there are times when there’s just not a lot of separation and even though you might not have as efficient a day the opportunity for big plays are always there – anytime you have one-on-one matchups. We know every week there’s going to be a plan for Jimmy Graham, a plan for (Darren) Sproles, and a plan for (Marques) Colston. That’s just opportunities for guys like Ben Watson to have big days and these young receivers to continue to develop, and when we get Lance Moore back, so we’ve got plenty of weapons and there will be plenty of opportunities for everybody, but I think that today there were far too many three-and-outs. There was a lot in the first half especially, so when you can’t even get that first, first-down, it’s hard to get things going. I find that when we do, in a lot of cases, we drive the field and go down to get points, so we have to continue to find ways just to execute a little bit better and get drives going so that we can have opportunities for everybody.

Q: What was the plan for Jimmy Graham as you saw it as the game unfolded?

DB: It seemed like they were matching (Aqib) Talib on him early and then that seemed to be pretty consistent and obviously at times depending on the situation and personnel group they did some things to Jimmy or some of the other guys. Listen, that’s football. They’re going to have a plan for you in every situation – red zone – you’ve got to find ways to combat it.

Q: They didn't blitz much – didn’t give much pressure in the middle – they gave a lot of time to throw today, so what did they do to kind of disrupt the passing game a little bit?

DB: Really I think we just weren’t as efficient as we should have been. I feel like we did have opportunities and unfortunately we did not take advantage of them until late. We started putting together some nice drives late in the game and were able to overcome a 10-point deficit to take the lead and unfortunately we couldn't hang onto it.

Q: Sometimes we forget how young Jimmy Graham is in the league. Ben Watson said earlier, ‘There are going to be lessons learned hard by him.’ This is kind of a lesson to him tonight, isn’t it? How teams can play him and sometimes he’s not going to have that catch.

DB: Yeah, yeah. Here’s the thing, it’s easy to get frustrated and I think you just have to keep battling and understand that you're going to have nights where it's not coming to you and it’s just not happening for whatever reason, and you’ve just got to keep plugging away and know that the opportunities will come. Opportunities will come and if they’re spending that much time wondering about you then other guys can make them pay as well and that’s football – that’s the chess match that we play each Sunday.

DB: Yeah, we really ramped that up in the second half. We felt like that was big for us. We were able to put together some nice drives. All those backs and those guys up front did a great job.

Q: A couple of your teammates scored for the first time today. Does that bode well for the future?

DB: Yeah it does. (Travaris) Cadet is a talented player that we can continue to use more often. We know the talent these young receivers have with (Nick) Toon and Kenny (Stills) and this offense really with what we are able to do from a personnel standpoint with multiple personnel groups, formations and the tempo with which we play, you feel like there is going to be opportunities for these guys moving forward.

Q: You threw to Jimmy Graham a lot tonight when he was covered. Is that the trust in him, or trying to keep them honest?

DB: There were situations where you are trying to get him the ball. Obviously, you are being smart about it. It’s one-on-one and we feel like our guys, no matter who is covering them, can win in one-on-one (coverage). Listen, they’ve got good players too, and sometimes they are going to get you. You’ve just got to bide time and wait for that opportunity.

Q: Did the interception just get away, or did you put that in a spot where you thought he would come down with it or nobody would?

DB: Obviously, in hindsight I wish I hadn’t thrown it. There was no need for it. It was third-and-long, just throw it away. But he was standing there and I threw one up. It was just a bad decision on my part.

Q: Drew, you go into the bye 5-1, it’s a good spot to be in, isn’t it?

DB: Well, 5-1 is a good spot to be in. Coming off a loss, that’s not the taste you want left in your mouth. You always want to get back to work as quickly as possible after that so that you can right the wrong, kind of wipe away the sins of the game that you lost. But, it is what it is. We’re coming into the bye week, and it is going to be a great opportunity to get a lot of guys healthy, which will be great. You know, get us to full strength when we come back and prepare for Buffalo.